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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27686369">You Must Like It Here</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuniorWoofles/pseuds/JuniorWoofles'>JuniorWoofles</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Gold and Rust [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Doctor Who (2005)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anniversary, Established Relationship, F/M, Gen, Idiots denying that they're in love, Relationship Study</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:47:52</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,802</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27686369</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuniorWoofles/pseuds/JuniorWoofles</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They’d stopped counting anniversaries years ago, but that didn’t mean they didn’t celebrate them.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Gold and Rust [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2024612</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>You Must Like It Here</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wasn't planning on writing anything for the anniversary but then this half popped into my head and I ended up with this, which turned into a bit of a character/relationship study. I just wanted something soft and it's as close as I could get with these two angsty idiots. One day I might be able to write fluff for these two that isn't angsty but today is not that day. </p><p>Title from Murray Gold, from the series 5 soundtrack. Unbeta'd so all mistakes are my own.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They’d stopped counting anniversaries years ago. It was something that they never could keep track of, no matter how hard both of them had tried at one time or another. Counting time didn’t mean the same to them. They didn’t see time in the linear sense, they saw it all at once, all those possibilities and choices. It meant that they could dip in and out of the whole stream at any one time; one creating ripples for the other to soothe over. </p><p>Incidents could be counted in the way years could not. It was almost easier to count time like that, than in the way humans would count years. To count it in the moments shared between them, all of those memories from the time they were young boys to where they were now. All of that pain and anger, hatred and frustration; both of them just clinging to each other like a shadow they couldn’t quite part from. </p><p>Shadows weren’t so easy to cut away as Peter Pan made it seem, she’d remarked one day. </p><p>He’d snorted and told her very matter of factly that Peter Pan didn’t exist and she was a complete idiot for thinking that. </p><p>She retorted with some nonsense about having met both Barrie and the true Peter and that he was just jealous he couldn’t fly. </p><p>He’d snarled and told her he didn’t bloody need to fly if he had a ship. </p><p>She’d smiled, remembering a childhood confession and threw in back in his face. </p><p>He’d spluttered and glared at her until she relented in their argument and gently kissed his anger away. </p><p>Sometimes it was the only thing that worked. </p><p>She held him in her arms now, head hooked over his shoulder, occasionally turning to press kisses into his cheek. </p><p>He’d deny it to anyone who asked, including her if she was stupid enough to bring it up, but he never turned a single one of those away. He leaned into them, seeking the comfort of the soft gesture, needing the reassurance she was offering him. He was so broken, so beyond hope that he clung to whatever love he was given. </p><p>Until he decided that love was going to make him go mad again and he’d leave her, throwing plots and schemes behind him and littering dead bodies in his wake. </p><p>He was taunting her, showing how much chaos lived in his heart. He was trying to prove with actions that she could never fix him, trying to force her to admit that there was nothing she could do for him. They both knew he would never stop, that he was incapable of doing so. </p><p>Yet still, she kept trying. </p><p>He didn’t know why she hadn’t given up on him yet.</p><p>Sometimes even she didn’t know why she continued to chase him down. He made it so difficult, refusing love every time and finding new ways to hurt her until he’d broken her down over and over, only stopping when he himself couldn’t bear it anymore. He revelled in pain, even hers; that sick feeling fuelling him in his madness. But watching her, his hearts would start to splinter and threaten to break, every time she looked at him like she’d truly lost him this time. </p><p>He was lost, but he didn’t want her to lose him. </p><p>I’m your bad shadow, he’d joke after, when they were both still hurting and trying to offer small comfort to the other in little admissions of a temporary ceasefire. </p><p>Can’t have you leaving me then, she’d mutter, so low that he wasn’t sure if he was even meant to have heard. </p><p>He was. She’d tell him over and over that he could be loved enough to take the pain away if he just let her. He heard and yet he never listened. It was too scary to admit that after hundreds of years there was such a thing as stopping. </p><p>He’d never known peace. Every offer of it only served to remind him only of that thing that he had never had. </p><p>She smiled softly, trying to smooth out some of the worries in his mind with hers. She gently pushed into his subconscious, started trying to fix things. </p><p>It was what she did, what she always did. It was like she just couldn’t help herself. </p><p>Any other day he might have reminded her that he didn’t want to be fixed and move away. He’d push her away, physically, mentally and then he’d run. </p><p>They’d both gotten so very good at running away over the years. </p><p>But today, today he didn’t run. He didn’t fully settle into it, didn’t allow her access to the worst of the pain, but he didn’t push her away either. He allowed himself to be held, surrounded only by love and twin heart beats beating in tandem. </p><p>She knew he’d be gone by morning. She’d fall asleep eventually and he’d pull free of her embrace and disappear into the night. </p><p>Hiding in the shadows was easier than facing her. She was soft, so gentle and peaceful under the lull of sleep. He didn’t need to see the hurt in her eyes when she remembered he was still there with her. Still broken beyond repair. So he left. It was simpler. </p><p>They didn’t know how long they’d been doing this dance, not in terms of years anyway. They’d lost track of how long they’d been running, the years passing for one different than for the other. And yet, the passage of time could not dilute the feelings of two people who were drawn together like magnets. </p><p>No matter how far they tried to run from each other, no matter how much time they tried to fill up in between, somehow they would always find their way back to each other. </p><p>Most of the time they did it was full of pain and hurt. Still trying to hurt, still trying to heal. Not accepting that the other had accepted themselves a long time ago and nothing could be done. (Not accepting the fact that they’d both already accepted the fact that neither of them would change. He would always hurt, she would always heal). </p><p>Still, even knowing that the other would never change, they kept trying, kept <em>pushing. </em>Their neverending push and pull, the endless game of cat and mouse, it only served to paint more bruises on battered hearts. It was all they had ever done, all they knew how to be. He’d run and she would chase. She would flee and he would follow. An endless cycle of love and hate, of life and death, hurt and comfort. </p><p>They would never say it out loud, neither to each other or to themselves, but they needed it. They needed the dance, the security of knowing that somewhere far in the galaxy there was at least one other person who knew them inexplicitly. Someone who would never run when they found out about the worst aspects of themselves, because they’d already seen it firsthand and knew how destructive it could be. It never changed. The years did and they did, and yet inherently nothing did. They still needed each other. </p><p>They clung to each other now as they had then. Two boys running from responsibilities, scared to grow up. The future was calling and they weren’t ready to face it. They’d ran as far as they could, ducking and dodging, weaving through the city that trapped them. It had felt like flying. Hands held tight in each other, more scared of losing each other somewhere along the way than anything else. If they ran, they ran together. If they were scared, they were scared together. If they were caught, they would be caught together. They didn’t care, young enough to think that together was some magic word that could rise above anything else. It was all the power they needed, the only force they needed against the world. When the future came calling, as loath as they were to face it, they vowed to do so together. </p><p>They had been young, and foolish in the way children are. It was before the Medusa Cascade, before madness and fear froze one to the spot and turned his mind inside out and caused the other one to run as far away as his legs could take him. He never stopped running that one, only realising too late that he’d left the one thing he needed behind. </p><p>Now, she pressed more absent minded kisses to his face, trying to press centuries of apologies into each one. Time was long written and it was too late to do anything to change it. They both knew that. But this time, right now, for as long as it lasted? They were together, and that was all that mattered.</p><p>Feeling sentimental, he’d laugh later, no bite to his words at all. </p><p>She’d hum and he’d know, reading her mind as easily as she could his. </p><p>He’d stroke her arms from where they held him tight and he’d turn and kiss her. There would be more words later, words like <em>stay </em>and <em>please, </em>whispered into the small space against the shell of his ear in the hope that he wouldn’t ignore them as he always did. </p><p>He’d still run. Even as the words left her mouth they both knew this. </p><p>Too many years later and now she was the one frozen in fear as he ran as far away as possible. </p><p>That would be later, when he would hesitate for a second longer than usual before laughing it off, his hearts beating frantically as comfort washed over him and he wished for nothing more than to drown in it, drown in her as he had as a child. He couldn’t. It was too much, another insanity waiting for him. </p><p>Later she’d ask him to stay and he’d leave again. Later still, he’d miss her and throw some crazy scheme around in the hopes it would grab her attention. Later she’d be furious, yelling at him about the value of life as she chased him down. Later, they’d calm down again, a softness creeping in as they remember that love and hate hang in a perfect balance. Later, it would be the same old routine all over again. </p><p>But that would be another time, another day. Now they held each other in silence, not trying to hurt themselves or each other. For now they could pretend that love was tipping the scales, that holding each other like this was enough to keep the nightmares at bay. For now they could be at peace, seek comfort in one another and not acknowledge how much lighter it made everything seem. </p><p>They’d stopped counting anniversaries years ago, but that didn’t mean they didn’t celebrate them. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>If you liked this, I have a Doctor/Master Christmas fic in the work for these two that I'm super excited about. I'm also planning on turning this into a series based off of soundtrack titles that remind me of them so I am open to suggestions on that as well. </p><p>Happy Doctor Who day &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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